California’s biggest oil producer is trying to become a carbon storage company. And maybe a data center company, too.
California Resources Corp., an energy company with its headquarters in Long Beach, is branching out as the state pushes toward a future that uses less oil. In May, CRC began injecting carbon dioxide underground in Kern County’s Elk Hills. Their goal is to store carbon dioxide emissions from their nearby natural gas power plant in a depleted oil reservoir called Carbon TerraVault One.
“We’re putting the carbon right back where it came from,” said Chris Gould, CRC’s chief sustainability officer and executive vice president. The project is “first of a kind in the state in terms of storing, permanently and safely, carbon dioxide in the [earth’s] subsurface. It’s also the first [to store it] in a depleted oil and gas reservoir, which I think is pretty cool.”
CRC is also looking to expand new business above ground: The company has proposed building a 100-acre data center campus at Elk Hills powered by its existing but underused gas plant, in another bid to repurpose infrastructure originally built for oil production.
